Back in 1967, the Beatles set a benchmark for music anniversaries by marking “20 years ago today” at the start of “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.” After all, two decades seemed like an eternity back in pop music’s nascency.
Not so much anymore.
These days, each year brings multiple significant anniversaries, the kind with a 0 or 5 at the end — and well beyond 20. Heck, it’s been more than 60 years since Elvis Presley and Chuck Berry charted their first singles.
Fifty years, meanwhile, has become the standard of celebration and mark of some degree of immortality, and 1976 had more than its share of notable music moments that will be commemorated during the coming months. With that in mind, we’ve picked 26 for 2026, so mark your calendars accordingly.
• Motor City rocker Bob Seger’s breakthrough year started with the April 12 release of “Live Bullet,” recorded at Detroit’s Cobo Arena. It brought him into the Top 40 of the Billboard 200 (No. 34) and multi-platinum status, as well as nationwide airplay. That teed up his ninth studio album, “Night Moves,” for Top 10 success and sales that even outdid “Live Bullet,” launching the Top 20 hits in “Mainstreet” and the title track.
• Already riding a Grammy Award-winning hit streak with his two previous albums, Stevie Wonder signed a new $13 million-plus contract with Motown, then made good on it with “Songs in the Key of Life” (Sept. 29), a Grammy-grabbing double-album that topped the charts with hits such as “I Wish,” “Isn’t She Lovely” and “Sir Duke.” It was eventually inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame and the Library of Congress’ National Recording Registry.
• Motown was rocked when Supremes co-founder Florence Ballard, who was kicked out of the group in 1967, died Feb. 22 at the age of 32 from heart disease. She was the partial inspiration for the Effie White character in “Dreamgirls.”
• George Clinton and his Parliament-Funkadelic crew debut its signature stage prop, The Mothership — which “landed” on the stage as band members disembarked — on Oct. 31 in Houston. The vehicle was used for a number of years and currently resides in the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, with a new Mothership reportedly on the way this year.
• Aretha Franklin teamed with Curtis Mayfield for “Music From the Warner Bros. Picture ‘Sparkle,’” which came out June 1 in front of the movie. It topped the Billboard Top R&B Albums charts and yielded hits such as “Something He Can Feel,” “Jump” and “Look Into Your Heart.”
• On March 20, Detroit-born shock rocker Alice Cooper married Sheryl Goddard, one of the performers in his “Welcome to My Nightmare” show. Nearly 50 years, three children and some grandchildren later, they’re still together — at home and on stage.
• “Detroit Rock City” was coined on March 15 when Kiss put the tribute to its second home as the first track of its double-platinum fourth studio album, part of a busy year that saw another release, the platinum “Rock and Roll Over” in January.
• Grand Funk Railroad came to a premature end with the release of two albums, “Born to Die” in January and the Frank Zappa-produced “Good Singin’, Good Playin’” on Aug. 9. The group had already disbanded before the latter’s release and wouldn’t record again until 1981.
• Paul McCartney & Wings kicked off its Wings Over America Tour on May 3 in Fort Worth, Texas, marking McCartney’s first concerts in the U.S. since the Beatles in 1966. A “Wings Over America” album from the tour was released on Dec. 10.
• On Aug. 31, a U.S. District judge found that George Harrison “subconsciously” plagiarized the Ronnie Mack song “He’s So Fine” on his 1970 hit “My Sweet Lord.” He was ordered to pay nearly $1.6 million in damages. A similar suit in the U.K. was settled out of court the following year.
• During the April 26 episode of NBC’s “Saturday Night” (not yet “Live”), producer Lorne Michaels jokingly offered the Beatles — broken up since 1970 — $3,000 to perform three songs; “You divide it any way you want. If you want to give Ringo less, that’s up to you.” A week later, Paul McCartney was visiting John Lennon and they considered surprising Michaels at the studio, but decided against it.
• Peter Frampton’s “Frampton Comes Alive!” concert set came out Jan. 15 in the U.S., hitting No. 1 on the Billboard 200 for 10 nonconsecutive weeks and sending the singles “Show Me the Way,” “Baby, I Love Your Way” and the epic “Do You Feel Like We Do” into the charts. The Grammy Hall of Fame set was the best-selling album of 1976 and made sure everybody knew Bob Mayo was on keyboards.
• The J. Geils Band released “Blow Your Face Out,” a live album partially recorded at Detroit’s Cobo Arena the previous year, on April 22. Among the tracks was “Detroit Breakdown and a cover of the Supremes’ “Where Did Our Love Go.”
• The Eagles flew high throughout 1976. “Their Greatest Hits (1971-1975)” was released Feb. 17 and is currently the second top-selling album of all time (behind Michael Jackson’s “Thriller”). The group’s landmark “Hotel California” album followed on Dec. 8, hitting No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and selling more than 30 million albums worldwide to this point.
• Led Zeppelin’s concert film “The Song Remains the Same” hit theaters in October, three years after most of the footage was shot. It grossed a recorded $12 million at the box office and became a template for other acts’ film projects since.
• The band Boston’s self-titled effort, released Aug. 25, became the best-selling debut album to date thanks to singles such as “More Than a Feeling,” “Long Time” and “Peace of Mind.” Also bowing with first efforts in 1976 were Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers (Nov. 9), Blondie (December), Johnny Cougar (nee Mellencamp) (Oct. 1), the Runaways (May 17) and the Alan Parsons Project (June 25).
• Ramones began its recording career with its self-titled debut on April 23, launching a new era of American punk rock.
• British quartet the Damned releases “New Rose” on Oct. 22, considered the first punk rock single by a British band. The B-side was a revved-up cover of the Beatles’ “Help.” The group’s debut album, “Damned Damned Damned,” followed four months later.
• The Sex Pistols debuted with “Anarchy in the U.K.” just over a month later, on Nov. 26, 11 months before that quartet’s debut album. It reached No. 38 on the British charts.
• On Thanksgiving night, Nov. 25, The Band’s original lineup played its final concert, a star-filled affair titled “The Last Waltz,” at the Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco. It was filmed by Martin Scorsese and released in theaters 17 months later, along with an album.
• Canadian trio Rush’s fourth studio album, “2112,” came out in March and gave the band its first Top 5 album in its homeland and its highest to-date appearance on the Billboard 200 (No. 61). It was followed Sept. 29 by the group’s first live album, “All the World’s a Stage,” which reached No. 40 in the U.S.
• Wild Cherry’s disco-rock anthem “Play That Funky Music” came out in April and reached Top 5 success on the Billboard Hot 100 — and immortality on the party and club circuit.
• ABBA premiered its new single, “Dancing Queen,” in the spring of 1976 on TV in Japan and Germany. It came out in August and became the Swedish quartet’s only No. 1 hit ever in the U.S.
• A day (a month, at least) that will live in infamy. Starland Vocal Band released “Afternoon Delight” in April, giving us a forever punchline, even if we were horrified that it actually won a Grammy Award in 1977.
• On the other side of the coin, many have never heard of the Wild Tchoupitoulas or its self-titled album, but rest assured that the eight-track set — by the Mardi Gras Indian tribute along with members of the Neville Brothers and the Meters — ranks as the one of the best New Orleans and, for that matter, American, albums ever, and it richly deserves its spot in the Library of Congress’ National Recording Archive.
• Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson starred in a third version of “A Star is Born,” which opened Dec. 18 and grossed $80 million, the second highest of 1976 behind “Rocky.” The love theme “Evergreen” won an Academy Award in 1977 for Best Original Song.
